Various methods and apparatuses for attaching elastic members to leg-contacting portions of disposable wearable articles such as disposable diapers are known.
In the prior techniques, the articles are generally manufactured by a process which includes the steps of: feeding a continuous web which is a base material or precursor of an article along the manufacturing line, feeding a continuous elastic member to the continuous web while stretching the continuous elastic member to an extended condition in the feeding direction of the continuous web, attaching the elastic member in the extended condition to the continuous web with adhesive so that a layered continuous strip comprising the continuous elastic member and the continuous web is obtained, and severing the continuous strip at predetermined distances along transverse severance axes to obtain individual articles.
Methods and apparatuses for attaching elastic member to a waist band zone of disposable articles are also known. However, in those techniques, in contrast, generally, a continuous elastic member had to be stretched, not in the longitudinal feeding direction of the web, but in the transverse direction thereof and cut into the predetermined lengths when in the extended condition.
The respective individual elastic members obtained thereby were attached by adhesive to extend in the transverse direction of the continuous web.
However, difficulties have been encountered in handling the elastic members at the high speeds necessary for economic mass production and attaching them to the web which is also being fed at a high speed. An appropriate solution for such high speed handling has not yet been proposed.